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serving others at cecyouth and beyond…

By Josh Bones

Take just a minute to reflect on how awesome our Lord is. Think of all of creation, think on how the Lord made it all and has sustained it through every second of its existence. Think of the story of Israel through the Old Testament, think of how the Lord carried them through their trials, smashed their enemies, and saved them from destruction time and time and time again. Think about the incredible grace that has been shown to us in God’s own son dying for us on a cross so that we can be in eternal relationship with him. There is just so much to our God that it really is beyond our comprehension!

Now picture this: God, Ruler of the universe, Creator of all things and Redeemer of his chosen people, and imagine him in the skin of a middle aged man, on his knees in the dust, washing someone’s dirty, smelly feet. Sounds crazy doesn’t it? But that’s exactly what Jesus did for his disciples in John 13 (chase it up now!). That’s right, Jesus, the Lord and Ruler of all things past, present and future got down on his knees and scrubbed the disciple’s stinky feet clean.

Why would he do this? What on earth could he be trying to show them? That God is a God of clean feet? I don’t think so, in fact it seems to me that there’s something far more significant than just feet washing going on here. Jesus washing the disciples’ feet was to demonstrate two things, follow this through with me.

Firstly, and most significantly, Jesus washing those feet was symbolic of what he was about to do on the cross. When Jesus defeated sin through his death and resurrection, he didn’t clean our feet, but instead offered to clean our souls. Anyone can clean someone’s feet, in fact anyone can clean their own feet quite easily, but only Jesus can take away our sins and clean us so that we can be friends with God.

Secondly, Jesus was showing that he didn’t come to be a ruler who pushes people around and tells everyone what to do. Jesus came as a ruler who serves his people, even to the point of death! This is something worth thinking about, if we are God’s people saved through Jesus’ blood, and if we desire to be more like Jesus, then how should we act? Jesus has answered it for us right here – we should serve.

But who should we serve and how should we do it? Well as Christians we should, of course, be serving God with everything we do, but what does this actually look like in our lives? It means many things, things that we hear every week in youth group like reading the bible so we can know God better and talking to our friends about Jesus so they can serve him to. But as well as this, it means serving other Christians.

1 Peter 4:10 says, “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace”. This means that we should constantly be on the look out to see how we can serve our Christian brothers and sisters. Think about what this means particularly for youth group, let me give you some examples; if God has given you strong arms, maybe you could help setting up chairs; if God has given you a caring heart, maybe you could listen to people who are upset and cheer them up; if God has given you a clever mind, maybe you could help set up the sound gear or computers; if God has given you a big friendly smile, maybe you could go say hello to that new person by themselves up the back. Don’t hear me saying ‘only help out if you think your good at something’, that’s not the case at all! Maybe you don’t have a strong arm, that doesn’t mean the chairs don’t need to be set up, get stuck in and help out anyway!

As Christians we are all about serving God, and one way of doing that is by serving others. Don’t be one of those people who just sit in church or youth, listen to the talk, eat the supper, then leaves. Instead, be one of the people who is always on the lookout for what needs to be done, for who needs a friend, for how they can make someone else’s life easier. Remember, by serving others, we are really serving God!

Can you think of ways to serve at ccecyouth?  Leave your comments…